Chapter Text
“Emma Swan.”
It’s a whisper, barely audible. Regina grips the dagger tighter in her palm, knowing she will hear her, no matter what. She’s whispering; yet still, she knows she’ll hear. And she’ll come.
“Regina.”
She stares, drinking in her image. It’s not Emma, but it’s close. Almost enough. But now that Regina thinks about it, she’s not sure the last time she’s seen Emma. Her Emma.
Not whatever The Dark One thinks Emma should look like.
But it’s close, so still she stares. She really can’t help herself from looking at all the differences and staring, begging herself to find any sign that Emma - the real Emma - is still in there somewhere.
“You…summoned me,” Emma (or whatever approximation stands before her) sneers.
“No,” Regina says, speaking softly. Because she did not summon this….this monster. This thing.
“No?” Emma’s eyebrow climbs her forehead and the look is so foreign on her face, it makes Regina’s heart sink.
Yet, she forces herself to speak. “No,” she repeats, her voice sounding stronger.
“You…didn’t summon me?” And there’s a small lilt to Emma’s lips, almost imperceptible, but Regina catches it.
It gives her courage. Her Emma is still there. Somewhere buried beneath Dark One magic, Emma is here. She pulls her shoulders taut, calling upon her years spent at court, any sign of weakness fading from her person as she says, “I called Emma. Em-ma,” she drawls out the name. “Not whatever monster has stolen her body.”
“Jealous, Your Majesty?” The Dark One teases. “It is a very nice form.”
Regina remains impassive. “I summoned Emma Swan. Be gone, Dark One. I have no use for you.” She holds tightly to the hilt of the dagger, hoping the way her hand shakes isn’t noticeable.
The Dark One tilts her head, studying Regina, “We are one and the same, dearie. We cannot be separated.”
She forces her eye not to twitch. That pet name has been ruined by Rumple. But it helps keep her focused. This is not Emma before her. This is the Dark One.
“Then leave.” She turns away, moving from the living room and toward the kitchen.
She feels rather than hears the Dark One follow. “Do you prefer me like this?”
Regina freezes. The voice. That voice. Slowly, she turns around. Where the Dark One had stood - all black leather and snakeskin, her hair (stark white) pulled back in a severe bun, heels like daggers clicking against the flooring - now stood Emma Swan. Her Emma. Or at least an approximation of her.
Her hair is down, with its normal blonde coloring and not that white-bleached nonsense. But it lacks her usual voluminous curls.
And she’s wearing a leather jacket, but not her leather jacket. It’s not that wretched red, faux-leather monstrosity Miss Swan loves so much.
Regina looks back up at the almost-Emma, “I prefer Emma.”
“I am Emma.”
“You’re trying,” Regina agrees. “You’re trying to be her. You’re trying to corrupt her,” Regina corrects. “But it won’t work. She’s too good.” And ohhhhhhhhh does she wish she could say that with a sneer. She wishes she was able to sneer at Emma’s inherent goodness the way she did when Emma first arrived and the curse first broke.
They’ve been through so much since then. Too much.
Too much to feel anything but grateful at Emma for who she is.
Regina does not think of Emma’s inherent goodness as anything but a superpower. Emma is good, she is pure. Emma is the Savior.
She cannot be corrupted.
“Everyone can be corrupted,” the Dark One scoffs, unimpressed. She then leans forward with a grin, “And I have all the time in the world,” she promises in a wistful voice.
“Not Emma,” Regina returns. Emma cannot be corrupted, Regina’s sure of that.
“Even your precious Savior,” the Dark One sings in Emma’s voice.
The Dark One laughs, and it’s further proof that this is not Emma in front of her. Emma is many things, but needlessly cruel is never one of them. And that laugh sends shivers up her spine. It reminds Regina of her mother. It reminds her of Rumple. It reminds her of the helplessness she felt as a child and again as a young queen.
“Not. Emma.” Regina repeats. Forcing herself to remember, this is not Emma. Emma is hidden away in there, but she’s still in there. And she is not like her mother. She is not like Rumple.
“Eventually, dearie. I always win.”
Regina takes a breath and forces herself to smirk in the face of true evil. “Unfortunately for you,” she offers softly. “Emma’s strongest trait is never giving up and always fighting for what she thinks is right. She does not know how to give up.”
“I’m the Dark One, dearie. I have been around since the beginning, and I will be here long after I’ve used up your precious Savior. I am the one constant.”
“You forget,” Regina promises, keeping the false smirk upon her face; attempting to hide her fear behind a vengeful smirk. “You’ve never corrupted someone so strong; someone fundamentally good and filled with light.”
“Savior magic is…something,” the almost-Emma agrees. “I’ve never tasted such a thing before. But it will be suffocated until it becomes my own. And then, Your Majesty, I will truly be unstoppable.”
Regina scoffs at that, “Rumple made it seem as though you were already indestructible.”
“Mostly,” the Dark One answers honestly. Obviously not paying attention to where this conversation has moved, too focused on their own memories.
She raises an eyebrow and the almost-Emma freezes, eyes wide.
Gotcha.
In a puff of white-gray smoke, The Dark One is gone.
And Regina smiles and feels a sense of joy for the first time in weeks. The Dark One can be defeated. It just admitted it to her directly. Now, all she has to do is figure out how to do just that. She feels hopeful in a way she has not in a very long time. This is what she can do, she can save Emma.
---
“Mom!”
“Henry,” Regina says at a reasonable volume. “I am right here. There is no need to shout,” she sighs.
He smiles sheepishly. “I was just going to tell you I’m going to the library and try to help Belle with her research.”
“I’ll drive you,” Regina tells him with a smile.
“Mom!” And somehow, his teenage angst-filled tone has turned that into a three syllable word. Impressive. “I can walk to the library.”
“Of course you can, but I would like to drive you,” she reasons.
“Mom,” he groans.
“Henry, please.”
“I’m like…the safest kid in Storybrooke, Mom. My moms are the Savior and the Evil Queen. No one is going to mess with me.”
“The Dark One is loose, Henry.”
“The Dark One is Ma,” he deadpans.
She takes a deep breath, begging for patience, “Henry, please.”
“Ugh, fine. But only because it’ll do you some good to get out of the house.” He tilts his head to study her, “When’s the last time you’ve seen the sun, Mom?”
“Henry,” she says wearily, feeling her exhaustion seep into her bones.
He holds up both hands placatingly, “I know you’re doing your own research, but it’d do you some good to go outside.”
She rolls her eyes but moves toward the foyer to grab her coat and keys. They make it to the library and Regina remains in the car while Henry jumps out, calling, “Thanks, Mom!” She waits until he’s inside - Belle meeting him at the door and offering Regina a small wave - before driving to her crypt. She hadn’t wanted to say anything to Henry, but she’s read every book she brought from her last trip to the crypt and still has not found a thing.
Nowhere in any of the books she brought from the old world - hers or her mothers - have any information about the Dark One’s curse; especially not about how to break it. If the legends are to be believed, there is no way to break it.
But Regina doesn’t believe that. She can’t believe it.
“There has to be a way to save her,” she whispers to herself as she makes her way into the crypt. Emma saved her from the darkness; now it’s Regina’s turn to save her.
There is a way to save Emma.
There has to be.
So, she pulls more books from her crypt. And she does something she hasn’t done in a very long time. She prays.
Not to the God of this world. No.
But something even older.
Regina prays to her gods. She recites the prayers her father taught her. She builds an altar while she prays; she bakes bread for the altar; she cuts fruit and pours spirits for her offerings. She prays.
“Mom?!”
She finishes her prayer, carefully moving away from the altar and her offerings before turning toward the door where she hears Henry approaching.
Henry stops in the doorway, “It’s not Samhain.” It’s an obvious statement, but still he’s confused.
She smiles softly, “No, it’s not. But this seemed like a good idea.”
He studies her, then allows a smirk to overtake his face as he asks, “Is there any bread left?”
Her soft smile turns to a smirk not unsimilar to the one looking back at her, “Of course there is.”
“Woohoo!” He rushes out of the room.
“Offer some,” she calls after him.
“Got it!”
She hears his footsteps into the kitchen, silence for a moment, and then his feet stomping his way to his bedroom. She smiles as she reaches for the closest book she brought back from her crypt, feeling re-energized after her afternoon of reflection. She is so close to finding an answer to their Dark One problem, she can feel it.